"Seriously, it's genius. He calls himself a 'war hero,' and nobody in
that country club bunch would have the balls to challenge him on his actual policy views. And
all the other candidates will split the vote of the conservative voters. It's perfect."

(And so they agreed, and McCain was the nominee).
I bet it happened just that way.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

When I posted my nerdy rant about the importance of going for efficiency, I mentioned my research with my friend Rodolfo Cermeno on GARCH in panels. However in the published version, Badi made us cut all the simulation exercises.

We first compared OLS to our MLE panel garch estimator where the conditional variance was correctly specified and we found that,

"when comparing the OLS and MLE estimators (for the mean equation), we find that the MLE outperforms the OLS estimator in terms of bias, precision and mean squared error. In every sample, the MLE estimator has a MSE smaller than the OLS estimator by at least a factor of 4 when ρ =.25 and at least a factor of 5 when ρ = .5"

ρ is the arch(1) coefficient.

We then compared OLS to a mis-specified panel garch estimator and found that for the conditional mean coefficients, the MSE was lower with the misspecified garch estimator by at least a factor of 2.5.

Those are pretty big MSE improvements!

When the variance reductions are big and the bias induced in the conditional mean from a mis-specified conditional variance model is small, OLS with asymptotically correct standard errors is kind of a dumb way to conduct research.

The Grand Game is where you read a linked article, or piece in the media, and compete to find the most absurd quote, or compete to ask the most devastating question. It's...well...Grand!

So, readers, go out into the world and observe the behavior (mating and otherwise) of the wild creatures called candidates, and report back. My email is mcmunger (at) gmail [dot] com. Just send in your entries.

And here is the judging criteria, from the incomparable H.L. Mencken. Find the words and actions of candidates that best embody the wisdom of this quote:

The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting ‘A’ to satisfy ‘B’. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods. (Notes on Democracy, 1926).

It was "men" in his time, of course, but Ms. Pelosi and Ms. Clinton are better men--in the above sense--than most men in Mencken's time.

Of course, Mencken also said that "Democracy....is the worship of jackals by jack asses." That'll get 'er done, too.

Go forth, readers, and report back! I'll post everything you find for the next 15 months, until "Elect-ageddon 2016!"

Monday, July 20, 2015

But my own experience just now cancelling my Wall Street Journal subscription wasn't much different. I called to cancel, and of course it's a bad sign that you have to call. It would be easier and faster, and cheaper for them, actually, if you could cancel on the web site. So the only possible explanation is that they think that they can harass and intimidate you into not cancelling. The people on the phone are hired thugs.

Knowing this, I was ready. Still, it took a little more than 21 minutes to get the job done. I won't go through the entire conversation, but it went like this (several times):
________________________________________
WSJ Thug: "Can you tell my why you want to cancel your subscription?"

Me: "Absolutely not."

WSJT: ... (clearly has been trained that silence is power)

Me: ...(has known for a long time silence is power)

WSJT: "But we want to make sure we provide the best service we can to our customers. We want to know how we could do better."

Me: "That makes sense. Tell you what, give me your fax number. I have a contract [rattle piece of paper near phone, audibly] for consumer service consulting. $175 per hour, four hour minimum, payable in advance. As soon as I get your check or money order, I'll be happy to answer your questions for up to 4 hours."

WSJT: ...(not sure what to do, because this is not on his script).

Me: "Or you can let me talk to your supervisor, right now. Just forward this call to your supervisor."

Me: "And I'm happy to answer that question. But I told you I need a check for $700 first."

WSJT: "Why would we pay you?"

Me: "Why would I provide your free customer service consulting? Do YOU work for free, pumpkin?"

WSJT: ...

[We went through this exchange, almost verbatim, just repeating things word for word, three times. Finally...]

WSJT: "Okay, I'll cancel the subscription. But what if I offer you the lowest rate, $16.00 per month?"

Me: "Are you going to cancel my subscription?"

WSJT: "That's up to you, sir. I'm offering you the lowest rate!"

Me: "No, it's not up to me. I asked you to cancel the subscription 20 minutes ago, and you have been harrassing me and refusing to do what I want. So, it's clearly up to you, not me."

WSJT: ...

Me: "Tell you what. I'll offer you a discount. Just $150 per hour, three hour minimum. So you can send me a check for $450, and I'll answer your questions. Otherwise, please put me through to your supervisor."

WSJT: "Well, the reason we aren't going to send you a check isn't the cost. We don't want to do that at all."

Me: "And that's exactly how I feel about your newspaper. Why would a discount change my mind? Would you please cancel my subscription?"

__________________________________________

He finally did. Remarkable. I wish I had thought to record it. The aggressive thuggery is really out of place at a newspaper that presents itself as professional. I will certainly never subscribe to any WSJ products again.